Cheating in a culture without God

There is an article out today on Yahoo about how rampant cheating hurts China's research ambitions. I am drawn to this because this problem will get worse in America as we drift further away from the God of Christianity. China has actively worked to suppress religion throughout its modern history. This has resulted in a culture that has no authority to answer to outside of the state. All men even men in China know that there is a God (Romans 1:19). The problem is that they have suppressed the truth of God and believed a lie in order to alleviate their consciences. What this has produced is a society that for the most part will cheat, plagiarize and resort to ghostwriting to get by. The article sites that in research papers bought and sold in 2007 fully 70 percent were plagiarized. This points to a moral decay in the society that can only be helped by one thing. Bringing the Lord Jesus to the people of China will reform their hearts. This happens in an effective manner when people really come to know Jesus. The Holy Spirit living within them convicts of sin and the need for righteousness (John 16:7-11). But the bigger issue I see is the increasing moral decay in the United States. As a society we are drifting away from God. This is happening for a variety of reasons but the single biggest issue lies at the feet of pastors and their churches. What has happened is we have taken the presentation of a message oriented around the unchanging and awesome God who has rescued us from eternal damnation, and replaced it with a message that is oriented around the people and their world. The God in this second message is the means to an end and the end is us. He serves us. This is a far cry from the message of Jesus to deny ourselves take up our cross and follow Jesus (Matthew 16:24). What has happened is most people who attend church are comfortable with allowing that and perhaps devotions in their home to be the biggest expression of public Christianity that they make. We have become a society of Christians consumers living in our Christian ghetto content to let the world go. The majority of people manning the oars in the boat of our society are pagan. They have no moral base outside of the tattered remains that have been passed down from our forefathers. The direction they are rowing us is away from the light of the gospel. How can this change. Politics will not do it. The only answer that can rescue a society adrift is for Christians to live like Christians. We must bear the glory of Jesus to the people that we meet. If we do not share the marvelous message of Jesus redemption with them they will not hear and if they do not hear they cannot believe (Romans 10:17). The only hope for a changed society begins with you and me being willing to live God focused lives to the glory of Jesus Christ.

Eliminate the competition

Last post I talked about the message of Abel. In a discussion with my wife another application to living the God focused life became apparent. When we analyze the story we see that Cain wanted God's acceptance. He wanted it so bad he was willing to kill for it. Now we might not kill for it but how often are we guilty of seeking positions as means of validating God's approval and acceptance or lack thereof. The church becomes a place where people often end up jockeying for position. We end up with a spiritual hierarchy or pecking order which is really far from spiritual. How does living a God focused life come to bear in this situation? It may not be a popular way or a way that is high profile but we do have an example in Jesus. Jesus ran into this problem with the disciples in Luke 22:24-27. In this situation Jesus told them that they needed to pursue becoming the servant of all. He said that pursuing positions was what the gentiles do. Jesus life also gives us a clue. Our objective should be to serve where God places us. Talk to the God about our desire and simply look for how we can serve. Wouldn't it be really cool if we knew that everyone who is in leadership in our church is there because they were identified as real servants. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 1:3, “...If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” (ESV) How do you handle that scenario? Serve. Tell the elders of your church what you desire, and continue to serve others. The greatest way for an elder board to have a pulse on the congregation is to serve it. By modeling service to one another we create a heart of service in our churches. When this happens we avoid fostering an atmosphere of spiritual competition. We teach people how to follow the second commandment which flows from the first. By depending on God's guidance, on His leadership to advance us, we model a God focused servant oriented life.